EVALUATION OF FREE STATE PROVINCIAL

EVALUATION OF FREE STATE PROVINCIAL
GOVERNMENT WEBSITE.
Submitted to the Public Protector
29 April 2014
1
Table of Contents
Introduction .......................................................................................................... 3
2
Scope and Objective of Evaluation ...................................................................... 3
3
Limitations ........................................................................................................... 3
4
Methodology ........................................................................................................ 3
5
Background ......................................................................................................... 4
6
Scope of Services to be provided by CIJ ............................................................. 4
6.1
Service Level Agreement .............................................................................. 4
6.2
Service provider’s obligations in terms of SLA with Provincial Government .. 4
7
Design and optimizing content ............................................................................. 5
8
Search Engine Optimization ................................................................................ 7
9
Social Media ........................................................................................................ 8
10 Security ................................................................................................................ 8
11 Functionality in terms of integration with other features ....................................... 9
12 Compatibility with smartphones ......................................................................... 10
13 Average time for the design and development of a website .............................. 11
13.1 What are the normal costs for such a service? ........................................... 11
13.2 Comparative quotations received during tender process ............................ 14
14 CIJ’s presence on web ...................................................................................... 16
15 Evaluation .......................................................................................................... 17
1
INTRODUCTION
As part of an investigation into alleged irregularities into the awarding of a tender
(reference RFP 2011/06/21) to redesign the Free State Provincial Government
website, AfriForum conducted an evaluation of the website in order to do a
comparative analysis of industry trends in terms of web development and pricing.
2
SCOPE AND OBJECTIVE OF EVALUATION
The objectives to the evaluation were to determine: (i) if the services that were
rendered by CIJ were in line with the specifications of the tender; and (ii) whether the
Free State Provincial Government, and by implication the fiscus, derived the extent of
the benefit as envisaged in the request for proposals and, lastly (iii) if the costs were
commensurate with industry standards.
3
LIMITATIONS
AfriForum did not have access to financial information of CIJ and our assessment is
based on the industry norm for similar services, not only in South Africa, but
internationally.
4
METHODOLOGY
AfriForum analysed documentation received from the FSPG in terms of an information
request submitted in terms of Section 18(1) of the Promotion of Access to Information
Act, Act 2/2000 and conducted a technical evaluation of the Free State government
website, as well as related sites, to determine the software that was utilized, unique
design artefacts and security features. The assessment compared this with the scope
of services as outlined in the SLA and other documents of the FSPG. The collected
data was collated and analysed to determine what the average costs would have been
and whether this was commensurate with the amount paid by the FSPG.
5
BACKGROUND
During June 2011, the Free State Provincial Government issued a request for
proposals for the development, re-design, implementation and maintenance of its
website. This request for proposals was carried in the print media as well as a special
Free State Province Tender Bulletin, No.14 dated 10 June 2011. Bids were received
from eleven (11) bidders that included CIJ. In its report dated 25 August 2011, the Bid
Evaluation Committee (BEC) scored CIJ the highest and recommended that the tender
be awarded to this entity. At its meeting of 26 August 2011, the Bid Adjudication
Committee (BAC) endorsed the recommendation of the BEC and awarded the tender
to CIJ. The budget implications were as follows:

2011/2012: R37,518,151.80

2012/2013: R41,081,040.00

2013/2014: R41,081,040.00
6
SCOPE OF SERVICES TO BE PROVIDED BY CIJ
6.1
Service Level Agreement
In order to development an understanding of this matter, it is important to analyse the
requirements of the Free State Provincial Government that formed the scope of its
engagement with CIJ. In this regard we note the provisions of the Service Level
Agreement (SLA) that was entered into between the FSPG, represented by the Office
of the Premier, and CIJ, latter represented by S Ntsele, on 12 January 2012. The
preambular section of the SLA outlines the desire of the FSPG to have a website that
is
“respected, comprehensive and a useful source of information for the provincial and local sphere of government in the Free State Province,
including provincial public entities” and that the site “should incorporate the latest technological advancements as well as industry-standard
best practices” and, lastly, that the site “should utilize a robust database-driven engine to efficiently store and organize all pertinent
information relevant to the broader provincial and local government sector”.
6.2
Service provider’s obligations in terms of SLA with Provincial
Government
The performance milestones for the service provider is set out in Sec 4 of the Service
Level Agreement (attached hereto). These are:

Design, testing, implementation and maintenance.

Content generation and management of the website

Design and optimize content
7

Optimize the management of information by adapting forms
already in use and transferring existing content to the new site

Optimize the use of the search engine

Online advertising

Incorporating social media
DESIGN AND OPTIMIZING CONTENT
Design artefacts are detailed functional design documents that contain specifications
about the design, generally with some diagrams and/or software technical design
documents.
Actual designing of a website is the process of creating/designing the look and feel of
a website around the tasks they are supposed to perform. These will normally relate
to how it will be used and the user experience, considering both aesthetics and brand
identity. In simple terms the phone number at the top of the home page may be
required because a company may want customers to call them rather than emailing
so they can contact them on the phone and build a rapport; or the e-commerce system
home page being full of products so the users are presented with options to purchase
as soon as they land on the home page. This cannot have been considered in these
government sites as the Service Provider used a template without changing its design.
The website http://www.freestateonline.fs.gov.za (“Free State website”) is built on the
very popular platform WordPress. WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool
and a content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL, which runs on
a web hosting service. The use of WordPress on the Free State website is confirmed
by visiting http://www.freestateonline.fs.gov.za/wp-login.php where the
Figure 1 WordPress Logon Screen
WordPress Logo appears. It appears that all the pages (under the “Departments” tab
of the Free State website) are built in WordPress (see example
http://www.premier.fs.gov.za/wp-login.php).
The website design layout is based on a standard WordPress template that is available
in the market for about $401. The developers of the Free State website simply
changed the existing theme template’s main colour scheme to blue. No functional
design was done.
No special site navigation tools were designed as the buttons, menu bars, icons etc.
are those which are contained in the template.
Help pages are part of the functional design of a website, but no such pages could be
found on the Free State website as required by the SLA. The site contains active
content such as a photo slide feature which is included in the template, but it does not
work
properly
on
all
browsers.
The
page
(http://www.freestateonline.fs.gov.za/?page_id=2670) displays differently in Firefox
(doesn't work), Chrome, IE and Safari (works).
The striking similarities between the Free State website and the
http://www.londonthemes.com/themes/londonlive/ sites as can be observed from the
pictures below.
Figure 2: http://www.freestateonline.fs.gov.za/
1
See http://themeforest.net/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&term=CMS and http://londonthemes.com/london-live-3-in-1-news-magazine-and-
blog-for-sale/ where this template can be bought.
Figure 3 http://www.londonthemes.com/themes/londonlive/
The developers of the Free State website even failed to mask the name of the theme
in the code. A screenshot of extracted code thereof is shown hereunder2:
Figure 4 London-Style Code contained in Free State website
8
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Links have been created to related internet sites. However, the Free State website is
badly optimised for search engines as there are no SEF (search engine friendly URLs),
e.g. http://www.freestateonline.fs.gov.za/about-us. This was an express requirement
of the SLA.
2
See http://www.freestateonline.fs.gov.za/wp-content/themes/LondonLive/style.css
There is further no site map and only the title Meta-tag is filled in. We were unable to
find keyword analysis and linking on the site.
9
SOCIAL MEDIA
Links to Facebook and Twitter are contained on the websites. These pages have
posts3 but they are old, dating back to October 2013 and December 2013. This feature
could be improved upon and updated daily or weekly. The Bid Evaluation Committee
recommended CIJ to be the service provider4, inter alia because their submitted
proposal stated that utilisation of social media would include, amongst others, RSS
feeds. It is noteworthy to mention that no option could be found on the websites to
subscribe to the RSS feeds. ‘Subscribing to a website RSS removes the need for the
user to manually check the web site for new content. Instead, their browser constantly
monitors the site and informs the user of any updates. The browser can also be
commanded to automatically download the new data for the user.’5
The social media pages, by their very nature, do engage with new audiences and the
opportunity for people who wouldn’t usually take part in consultation is made possible
through the site, save that automated RSS updates are not functional.
10
SECURITY
Administrator areas are not hidden on the website or series of websites of this size
and importance. Many simple plugins are available that hide the standard login from
would-be hackers.6 If the link to the administrator panel is not known, an attack
thereon is made more difficult and makes for a safer website. For example, the UK
government websites hide the admin area and one would get a ‘404’ Error page 7.
Using the standard link to the administrator panel also opens the sites for brute force
attacks. ‘A Brute Force Attack aims at being the simplest kind of method to gain
access to a site: it tries usernames and passwords, over and over again, until it gets
in. Often deemed 'inelegant', they can be very successful when people use passwords
like '123456' and usernames like 'admin.'8
WordPress security is often in the news. All Content Management Systems, due to
their open source nature, are never 100% secure. We have, however, only heard of
WordPress sites being hacked on mass9.
3
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ace-Magashule/355355867932817
See Bid Evaluation Committee Recommendation, page 5, par 3 (a)(i)
5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS
6 See http://wordpress.org/plugins/lockdown-wp-admin/faq/
4
7 See http://www.leeds.gov.uk/wp-admin, http://www.leeds.gov.uk/login, http://www.leeds.gov.uk/admin
8 http://codex.wordpress.org/Brute_Force_Attacks
9
See article at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22152296
Paragraph 4.2 of the Service Level Agreement between the Free State Provincial
Government and CIJ states that “It is specifically agreed that although the RFP No.
2011/06/21 made provision for the security of the website, the security of the website
is not the responsibility of the Service Provider as it will be done by SITA.” CIJ
describes in their tender proposal that they will factor in security standards during the
2011/2012 Phase two of the design of the website.
In terms of the Service Level Agreement between FSPG and SITA, SITA’s
responsibility in respect of website security is limited to backups10, not to allow access
to the Website hosting server and info, data or printed matter through its facilities to
any persons who are not authorised, in writing, by FSPG11, and shall deny any
identified virus infected data and access on the Website hosting server, to prevent the
distribution of viruses12.
We are of the view that security of websites being hosted on a security provider’s
servers (in this case, SITA) makes sense in respect of the backup, recovery and
protection of data of which they are the custodian of, but it can hardly be expected to
secure open source development code used by another service provider, in this case
Cherry Online.
11
FUNCTIONALITY IN TERMS OF INTEGRATION WITH OTHER FEATURES
WordPress can be extended to incorporate other features although no particularly
special or custom plugins are being used on the Free State website. There are roughly
30,000 plugins available for WordPress to extend its functionality. The use of such
plugins naturally depends on the needs of the client.
WordPress is probably the most widely used Content Management System, taking up
as much of 60% of the market trend as at February 201413. This does not necessarily
mean that it’s the right tool. Most government websites are custom coded and do not
use WordPress.
A possibly custom built elementary database can be found under the Free State
website’s ‘Careers’14 tab. It is a rudimentary Microsoft ASP coded job database.
10
See par 6.1.1.3 of the SLA between FSPG and SITA
11
See par 6.1.1.6 of the SLA between FSPG and SITA
12
See par 6.1.1.11 of the SLA between FSPG and SITA
13 http://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/content_management
14
http://www.interapps.fs.gov.za/Webapps/Jobseekersv91/vwQualpers/ShowVwQualpersTable.aspx
12
COMPATIBILITY WITH SMARTPHONES
Most of the websites load fairly properly on smartphones, but it has not been optimised
for smart phones. Some of the websites are unresponsive and they do not adjust to
the device they are being viewed on e.g. iPad vs iPhone may look different. Some
pages
don't
load
properly
on
a
smart
phone,
for
example
http://www.freestateonline.fs.gov.za/?page_id=2803. On an iPhone you will get a big
white square in the middle at the bottom of the screen.
Moreover, the following page doesn't even work properly on a PC.
(See
http://www.freestateonline.fs.gov.za/?page_id=2846). The image below demonstrates
the problem.
Figure 5 Improper loading of page
The link to the Mangaung Metro page produces an unfinished product with a login
message that work is in progress.
Figure 6 http://www.mangaungmetro.fs.gov.za/
13
AVERAGE TIME FOR THE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A WEBSITE
Experienced web developers spend an average of 2 to 4 hours to produce a bespoke
design using a template. Tight brand guidelines set by Clients may take longer to
design.
In the case of designing the Free State website, very little time had to be spent on its
design as it is a standard WordPress template which was purchased and of which the
colour scheme was changed. All the other sub sites use the same design. Market
indications show that one day per design per designer using a template are
reasonable. The site under review consists of 38 pages and should not take a single
designer more than 38 days to complete. As for developing, building and filling in
content should take four developers approximately one week to complete the site from
start to finish.
13.1
What are the normal costs for such a service?
An article published by Webpagefx15 demonstrates what one can expect to pay for a
website. High end website development costs fluctuated over the past decade. Many
websites now require responsive website design. Responsive design means that a
website is designed for functionality on desktops, tablets and mobile devices. With 232
possible screen sizes in 2014, it isn’t difficult to understand why responsive design has
driven the high end of website cost upwards. The necessity of having a website with
responsive design is one reason for the widening gap between the highest and lowest
possible costs for a website.
15
http://www.webpagefx.com/How-much-should-web-site-cost.html
On the lower end of Web design pricing, competitive industry pressure and
advancements in Web design tools pushed pricing down by about 10% in 2014.
Webpagefx published the following table showing the price fluctuations since 1995.
Time Period
1995 – 1997
1998 – 2000
2000 – 2004
2004 – 2009
2010 – 2012
2013- 2014
Expected Cost
$7,500 to $12,000
$6,000 to $10,000
$2,500 to $4,500
$2,000 to $7,500
$2,500 to $8,500
$2,250 to $10,000
By using Webpagefx’s cost calculator, an estimated price for a similar design and
feature contained on the Free State website, could be between $12,000 for a low end
site and $22,000 for a high end site.
Figure 7 www.webpagefx.com calculator screen shot
Another
website
calculator
tool
found
at
http://www.grandallwebdesign.com/calculate.html estimates the design of a website
Figure 8 Screen shot of grandallwebdesign calculator
containing 39 pages with additional graphics designs services at about $6560, 00, as
can be seen below.
Enquiries into website development charges based in the United Kingdom showed
that custom designed CMS sites are charged at approximately £1000 per page for a
design that is completely unique in look and feel. The amount is roughly broken down
as £300 in design time and £700 in template build and setting up the pages and
content. If a client requires wants customisation over the standard features of the CMS
this costs extra. The average site costs around £1500 GBP with high end sites topping
out around £5000 GBP. Applying these figures to the Free State websites will equate
to a minimum of £39,000 (£1000 x 39) and a maximum of £195,000 (£5000 x 39) for
a high-end site.
13.2
Comparative quotations received during tender process
Several companies tendered for the development of the Free State website. The
discussion in this part of the report is limited to those companies who qualified for the
Stage 2 evaluation as specified in the tender documents, i.e. Functionality criteria.
Matsapa Trading & Tawana Business Projects JV, IOX Consulting and Cherry Ikamva
Jugganaut Joint Venture were scored in terms of their proposed framework of content,
their business plan outlining the project proposal, implementation of project and
initiative, as well as their efficiency gains through competitive and holistic solution that
they offered in line with the Free State Provincial Government
Figure 9 Extract from the Report of the Bid Evaluation Committee (page 5 )
Communication Strategy. Both Matsapa Trading & Tawana Business Projects JV and
IOX Consulting scored about 60% less than Cherry Ikamva Jugganaut Joint Venture.
The tender process was flawed in its designed to look at price as a last criteria and
this elevated CIJ to the final stage, regardless of price. Although no pricing schedule
proposed by Matsapa Trading & Tawana Business Projects JV was available to the
writer at the time of writing this report, IOX Consulting’s pricing schedule was available.
IOX Consulting’s proposed cost to develop and maintain the same work equated
substantially less to R4,5m in total.
Figure 10 IOX Consulting - Bid document page 18
The substantial difference between R4,5m and about R140m is noteworthy and
glaringly incomparable with market trends.
The fact that a series of websites that could comply with the specifications laid down
by the Provincial Government for the Free State site using the technology and
templates that have been implemented, could cost anything from $6560 to 195,000
GBP in 2014, the resultant amount of R120m awarded to CIJ seems excessively
expensive.
14
CIJ’S PRESENCE ON WEB
CIJ’s website is not functioning. The Free State website link takes a user to a
seemingly incomplete address, ending with .co only, which informs the user that the
“Website [is] Coming soon”.
A search on www.cherryonline.co.za produces a similar result.
Desktop research revealed that CIJ has a Facebook16 page, of which the comments
thereon are mostly negative. The last activity on the site from CIJ was in 2011, the
same year that they were awarded the tender to set up the Free State website.
16
https://www.facebook.com/cherryonlinedesign
Figure 11 Cherry Online Facebook - comments
15
EVALUATION
When one is spending about R140m on a website, one would spend considerable time
on design, functionality and security. It is highly unlikely that CIJ spent much time on
functionality design as the templates were purchased off the shelf. It appears as if CIJ
must have thought "how can we use this template to display the information" rather
than "how can we design a template around the information we need to display".
A good user experience comes from thinking about how you want to display the
information and then moving things around to position them where you need them to
best display that information.
The Free State website was simply shoehorned into the template.